The difficulty of joining composites to dissimilar materials is one of the reasons why they have not found wider application in the automotive industry. Specialist consultancy TWI has developed an innovative process to overcome this. Adhesives are not suitable in every case, and bolted connections require inserts, which complicate tooling and can introduce tolerance and corrosion issues. Co-moulding metal and composites does not always produce a joint of sufficient strength. TWI's process uses an electron beam or a laser to modify the surface of the metal to improve adherence of the composite.
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